


Broken Mirrors

by compos_dementis



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-03
Updated: 2010-02-03
Packaged: 2017-10-07 00:20:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/compos_dementis/pseuds/compos_dementis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it's enough for England to pretend that America's beside him again. And sometimes it isn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Mirrors

As Arthur stood there in the suffocating darkness and the heavy-blanket silence, he saw only the two of them in the mirror.

 

He was the only one to see this – it’s not like he had anyone else over, he never did, alone in this cavernous house no matter how many nations he surrounded himself with – and yet he wanted the whole world to close their eyes and turn away, don’t look don’t look don’t look at my fantasy, at my dream, at my nightmare.

 

Alfred didn’t stand beside him. If he was, the top of Arthur’s head would have come up to Alfred’s glasses, and those shoulders would be more broad than his own, yet the taller body would stand like it was so much smaller than everyone around him. Alfred wasn’t here, but Arthur saw his reflection, sometimes.

 

He held him in his arms as well, but the warmth of bodily contact, the heat of an embrace, never penetrated past the desires of his heart.

 

He was alone in this house today, and alone in this world today, and he felt the cold of the bathroom floor seeping in through his socks.

 

Arthur turned on the light, but he was still alone in the mirror, watching it carefully in case something changed suddenly. Nobody watched him do this, and for that, he was grateful – nobody would understand, nobody would be able to comprehend why he still stood there, alone in his pajamas, London snow drifting past his window as he watched the mirror. Trembled, and watched the mirror.

 

He wasn’t broken. Not like the other nations (Russia and his Baltics, Prussia, France, America… America… America). No, this was just something he did sometimes, watching his reflection in the fogged-up glass, his body shivering from the winter air because he was an idiot and had forgotten to turn on the heater again. Here in this room, in this house, he was alone. He wasn’t broken, just lonely and cold, but in this mirror-world that he’d discovered…

 

In this fantasy realm he buried himself in, Alfred never left, and Arthur had watched him grow up proudly, and sometimes in these fantasies, Alfred never grew up at all, just stayed his little boy and held his hand and smiled that brilliant smile of his.

 

In this mirror, sometimes Arthur saw them together.

 

Tears were welling in his eyes but he wouldn’t let them fall, even if nobody was there to catch him crying like some kind of heartbroken teenage girl. He scrubbed them away with his sleeve like a child and continued to pretend, watch the mirror and see Alfred beside him, feeling an almost-embrace around him, an almost-scent of French fries and burnt sugar and warmth.

 

Arthur saw and felt Alfred beside him, or at least he almost did, or at least he could pretend he did, and that was enough, sometimes.

 

And sometimes it wasn’t.

 

He didn’t want to almost feel him, didn’t want to nearly touch him through the glass when he pressed his hands to it. Alfred was gone (gone, gone) and that was it, and he would never have him for his own again, only this… ghost of his presence that still lingered here in this godforsaken house.

 

He couldn’t stand it anymore. Couldn’t stand being so damn lonely, and losing so damn much, losing Alfred before he’d gotten the chance to say what he needed to (_I love you, I love you, you stupid wonderful boy, I love you_). And now Alfred had gone and…

 

Ruined himself… grown too large, too powerful, collapsed under his own height and…

 

He felt sick.

 

Suddenly all of that loneliness was replaced with anger, burning violent anger at Alfred’s stupidity, and his fists clenched as he beat into the glass, pounded on it, felt it crack beneath his hands. He didn’t stop for breath as he continued his assault, screaming and tearing the damn mirror from the wall, throwing it to the ground and watching it break.

 

When it was over, he sunk to the floor and sobbed.

 

The glass was broken and shards were caught in his fists, bloodied and bruised, and it cut into his legs as well now. He couldn’t care less.

 

He looked down to the tile floor, seeing the glass reflecting only the broken pieces of himself, little broken shards that had once made a whole. Shattered, meaningless, just like everything else on this bloody planet.

 

The mirror was shattered. Just like Alfred had been.

 

And just like he was now.

 

Broken.


End file.
